The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 52: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE DRAMA OF A NIGHT 30 The necessity for taking this step inspired Emma with the courage to carry it into execution. But how was she to issue forth from the grounds? If woman’s wit, when sharpened by love, can laugh at locksmiths, socan her ingenuity when prompted by a sense of danger be rendered equally acute. It was true that the garden door was locked, but then did she not know that her sister Julia had been wont to meet Curzon at a particular spot where a wooden bench stood on the inner side of the wall and the stump of a tree on the outer side, and had she not often observed those convenient stepping-places? ‘To be sure, and now, quick as thought, she availed herself thereof. _ With the infant corpse under her arm, she scaled the wall and sped onward in the direction of the lake. A quarter of an hour’s walk brought her to the shore, and pausing to listen, she could catch no sound of human voice or footstep. A leaden obscurity rested upon the lake, an obscurity which by the reflection that a large suriace of water always throws up even in the midst of the darkest night, was a shade less sombre than the surrounding blackness. With straining eyes did Emma seek to plunge her looks along the shore, both on the right and left hand, to see if any one were approaching, but she could distinguish nothing. Believing, therefore, that the opportunity was entirely favourable, yet feeling like a guilty wretch who is perpetrating a first heinous crime, with trembling hands did she grope about for a large stone, and with her handkerchief she attached it to the corpse. Then, with all her force, assisted by a sudden access of moral energy, she hurled the burden as far as she could. It fell with a heavy plash, and the next instant her ears caught the gurgling sound of the miniature whirlpool produced by that tiny corpse sinking deep down to its watery sepulchre. A feeling of relief sprang up in Emma’s bosom; but scarcely had this sensation thus taken life, when it was turned into an almost mortal terror as a loud cry and a rush of footsteps burst forth from an old jetty a few yards off. “ Ah! eaught at length! ’’ were the words which, in accents of savage triumph and uttered in the strong tones of a male voice speaking in the French language, smote upon her ear, and in less than a minute she was surrounded by half a CORNICLOOL cS (C(O) im